48 Hours - Inside a Killer's Gamble: The Interview with Mario Garcia | My Life of Crime

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Go deeper into the 48 Hours episode "The Search for Christie Wilson” in this special presentation of My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty. In this episode, Moriarty sits down face-to-face with killer Mario Garcia in prison after he is charged and convicted for the murder of Christie Wilson. Even with a unanimous jury convicting him, he still insists on his innocence.  Listen and follow My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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ConstantContact.ca It's Erin Moriarty, and we have a special episode for you today from my original podcast, My Life of Crime. I'm taking you inside true crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those accused of crimes. Here's an all-new episode of My Life of Crime that takes you deeper into the search for Christy Wilson. Follow along as I go beyond the scene of each crime, behind prison walls, and into the killer's inner thoughts. It's all on this season of My Life of Crime. Well, my name is Mario Garcia. I'm in Placid County Jail.

And I am in jail because I have been accused of the disappearance of Christy Wilson. Has it sunk in that you may spend the rest of your life in prison? Oh, it has been. I have had that feeling. I have gone through all the human emotions of anxiety, being afraid, being concerned for my family, and most of all, wondering what's going to happen to my family. I have lost everything.

I have lost, and I'm close to losing my house. I lost my job. I lost my car, my truck, my boat. But aside from all the physical possessions, I still have my family. I still have my family. I still have my sons. I still have my wife, who loves me and supports me and encourages me to go to the next step. Along with my mother, I'm still fortunate to have my mother lived at 76, 77 years of age, and I still have them. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 hours, and this is my life of crime. It's not very often that you get a chance to sit down to talk with a killer. It can be a tense, sometimes even hostile experience.

And that's what I went through in January 2007, when I sat across from a man by the name of Mario Garcia inside the Placer County, California jail. Garcia, who was then in his mid-50s, had been convicted of the murder of 27-year-old Christy Wilson. Do you know what happened to Christy Wilson? I have gone through my mind playing all the different scenarios when I walked out of the casino. And I can't figure out what happened, where she went after that. She did not get in my car. She did not drive out of the parking lot

at Thunder Valley Casino with me. If you listened to our last episode on the case of Christy Wilson, then you already know that Garcia was the last one seen with Christy when she disappeared from a California casino on October 5th, 2005. Garcia was charged and convicted of murder, even though Christy's body had not been recovered. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that pointed at Garcia, but without a body, not a lot of physical evidence. Prosecutors believed that Garcia was a cold-blooded killer with a history of hurting women, someone who deliberately withheld what he did with Christy's body

to continue to cause pain for her family. Now in part two, you'll get insight into the mind of a killer, because it's Mario Garcia's turn to talk. I'm just going to ask you straight out. Did you kill Christy Wilson? No. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. Why did 12 people who saw all the evidence think beyond a reasonable doubt, they didn't have any questions at all, that you were the one who killed Christy Wilson? When the verdict was announced and when they came out of deliberations, I was stunned that they have only done it for 10 hours. Were you expecting to be convicted?

No. My attorneys were not expecting it. I was not expecting it. My wife and my sons and my family were not expecting it. In fact, I was told, you know, you're going home. By your attorneys? By my attorneys, by my family, because there's doubt. There's reasonable doubt.

I had nothing to do with Christy Wilson's disappearance. The jurors all said they had no question of your guilt. Why did 12 people who looked at this evidence all unanimously decide beyond a reasonable doubt that you killed Christy Wilson? I don't think that they spent enough time looking at the evidence. The evidence that Garcia is referring to is hair consistent with Christie's that investigators found inside Garcia's car. At trial, his attorney raised the possibility the cops had planted it there. What are you saying? How are you saying the hair got there?

I don't want to make overstatements or engage in accusations, but I washed the car with my son on Saturday before it was impounded. I washed the car with a pressure washer that we bought at Costco. the car with a pressure washer that we bought at Costco. There's no possible way that the hair was on the door handle. There was no possible way that the hair in the trunk was there. Christy Wilson was never in my car. Why is it that the DNA on the door claimed to be of Christy Wilson was the only thing that was found? Why is it that the DNA from my sons, my wife, and other people that were in the car were not found? At that point in the interview, I'm thinking, hmm, Garcia just happened to have washed his car

from top to bottom before cops arrived? Mario, you cleaned the car by your own admission. You cleaned the car. That could explain why there wasn't more evidence cleaned the car by your own admission. You cleaned the car. That could explain why there wasn't more evidence in the car. I cleaned everybody else's DNA except Christy Wilson. That's the only thing they found. So how did it get there? So what did happen? Tell me about that night then. You went to the casino. What time did

you go to the casino? I went to the casino around 6 o'clock. Did your wife know you were going to the casino. What time did you go to the casino? I went to the casino around 6 o'clock. Did your wife know you were going to the casino? No. I did not tell her. Not at that time. You kept it from her? I kept it from her.

She did not approve of me going to the casino. I went there on several occasions with people from work. And that day, I decided to go to the casino. I went there by myself, and I should not have gone. How did you meet Christy Wilson? I was gambling at the casino. You were playing blackjack? I first started playing three-card poker, and then I moved to two tables down which it was a blackjack table

and I had been playing there for half an hour maybe an hour and then Christy Wilson came and sat on my left between me and another individual. Garcia describes Christy as gregarious. She was making small talk with everyone at the table and drinking. He says they moved to another table, which is where they joined an emergency room doctor, Robert Royer, who, by the way, would later testify at trial that he saw no scratches or injuries that night on Garcia's face. You were with Christy? Yes. She was sitting to my right. Dr. Royer, Bob Royer, described you two as appearing to be a couple, that you were together. We were not a couple. We just were somebody that we met at the casino.

It wouldn't have been any different if I had been with a male person. Why did you and Christy leave together? We... Christy's demeanor changed dramatically at some point in time. Garcia claimed that Christy became agitated after she had spoken with her boyfriend by phone and she began losing

money. She started getting mad at the dealers. She started getting mad at herself. The manager came over and told her to stop and warned her that if she did not stop, she was going to get kicked out of the casino. I tried to defuse the situation. Why did you leave with her? I tried to defuse the situation. Why did you leave with her? It was time for me to go. I was trying to leave for a good period of time, but I kept staying, and people kept asking me, oh, stay one more hand, and one more hand became five more hands.

And if you look at the video, Christy Wilson walks away from the table first, and I follow behind her. You go with her. Let's just be honest. I mean, you're a 54-year-old man. Right. This very cute 27-year-old girl is talking with you, spending time with you. Were you hoping that you might get a date out of this?

No. Were you following her out hoping? No, not at all. You might be able to hook up with her? Look, I am and I have been happily married. I have two great sons who are outstanding athletes and students. You were kissing her in the casino, Mario. I was not kissing her. And at my age, 54 years old, with a heart condition, taking blood pressure medication,

at that time of the day, for me, the last thing in my mind is to have sex with anybody. For me, it has to be a planned activity. It's not something that I can do and just say, oh, I'm going to have sex with somebody. That was the last thing in my mind. Garcia never explained why the two walked out together, but investigators believe that Mario somehow lured Christy to his car. He denies she got inside it despite the DNA evidence, and instead he claims that Christy left him to return to the casino to retrieve her cell

phone. But she's not seen again on any surveillance video and when Garcia is seen again on video, he's driving out of the parking lot and it looks like he's alone. Was she in your car? No, she never was inside my car. I can assure you of that. Never inside my car. So where did she go? That, I don't know. How could she simply disappear when she walks out with you? How could she disappear without another human being seeing her or without some camera seeing her?

There are cameras all over. You don't see her inside the casino. They show my car pulling in front of the doors of the casino and she is not in my car. She was not in the back of my car. She was not in the front of my car. But what happened to her, Mario? How could she simply disappear after she was with you? She's not seen on another camera. She's not seen back inside the casino. No human being sees her. I don't have answers for that. Did she meet somebody else in the parking lot? But wouldn't that be seen on camera? Well, they don't see that she got in my car, do they? They don't see where she went. Correct?

Mario, let me ask you something. You have said to me that Christy Wilson was absolutely not in your car. Right. She was not inside my car. I know that for certain. Was she around my car? Perhaps she was around my car, but not inside my car. She never got inside my car.

How did Christy Wilson's DNA get on the inside door of your car how did Christy Wilson's DNA get mixed in your blood on the car seat of your car those are answers or explanations that I don't have first of all the blood is less than half a drop of my blood, okay? And the DNA that they claim they found is not blood, is not bodily fluids. It's, as I know it, and it was explained in the trial, is skin contact type of DNA. Or it could be saliva. They did not say it was saliva.

They ruled it out as being saliva. It was by touching. And that is a wild speculation. She was never in my car. So you're saying that everything that belonged to Christy Wilson that was in your car was planted? Why didn't you bring that up at trial? I wanted to I discussed that with my attorneys but we were not

we I cannot explain how the hair got there I do not have an explanation for how the DNA got there but I know that Christy Wilson was not in my car In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing.

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voice. He's getting annoyed with my questions, but he's not stopping the interview, so I go on. How did you get the injuries? How did you get, and I guess it's the left side, how did you get the black eye? How did you get the scratches on your face? I fell on Wednesday afternoon after working in a tree and cutting branches and so forth. Those are injuries that I received through poison oak and falling from a tree. Mario Garcia admits that he had injuries on his face when investigators interviewed him four days after Christie's disappearance. His story is that on the same day he got home from the casino, he was injured working on his property.

And he claimed that he had been suffering from poison oak for days. But let's be specific about these injuries, okay? This one in particular, where did that black eye come from? Not poison oak, that's not an injury from poison oak. That came from the fall. Well, help me out, Mario. I'm joking, yeah. Your co-workers that morning saw that injury before you supposedly fell from the tree. They did not see no black eyes.

Didn't a co-worker say what kind of fight you got into, ask what kind of fight you had? That's because I had the poison oak and just the poison oak. I had not been shaving for a couple of days already. But I saw the picture. There were scratches on your face. That was poison oak. You have no injuries that are apparent to someone on Tuesday night when you meet Christy Wilson.

The next morning you go to work and you have so many injuries on your face that a co-worker actually asked whether you were in a fight what happened in between there just told you poison no poison oak I had those injuries it's I thought I didn't have dramatic injuries to the point where one of the witnesses said he looked like he got in a Mexican fight in a local Mexican bar. I did not have those type of injuries. How did you get the injury on the soft part of your arm, the big, big bruise? You know, if I can account for every injury and the bruise on my arm, you know, I got them from falling from the tree.

If you got these scratches from falling from a tree on that Wednesday afternoon, why are they just here? Why don't you have them around your ear or on your back? Why are they just on the front? I cannot answer every question that you're asking me. You're trying to put me on the spot, and I am telling you perhaps those are protective movements that I made as I'm falling from the tree to protect my eyes from my face. I'm not an expert on how one can explain how I fell from a tree. Okay? Did you get the eye injury? Did you get the scratches on your face?

Did you get the scratches on your chest from Christy Wilson? No, absolutely not. Mario Garcia also could not explain what he was doing at his car for the nearly four minutes that elapsed between walking out with Christy Wilson and then driving out of the casino parking lot. He insisted that when he arrived home about an hour and a half later that his wife Jean saw him. Did she see him with any injuries? We'll never know because she didn't testify at his trial.

I mean, you would have an alibi. Why didn't you have your wife testify? You say she saw you. I cannot answer the strategy that my attorneys use for having her testify or not testify. I wanted her to testify. She wanted to testify. She wanted to be in the trial and say that she saw me that day in the morning. My kids wanted to do that, and for whatever reason that I cannot explain,

she was not in court testifying. If you didn't kill Christy Wilson, what do you think happened to her? Who's the... I mean, how could she just disappear, Mario? Somebody doesn't just disappear. That's exactly my question. I am very sorry that she's missing. I cannot explain why she's missing.

It's not something I did or was responsible for. This was about as far as I could go pushing Mario Garcia on Christy Wilson. He never backs down in his denials, and many of you might find him credible. But as we know now, Mario Garcia is just a liar. In the summer of 2020, Christy Wilson's body was finally found exactly where Garcia put her, on the land he used to own, just 100 yards from his front door. Knowing that now, it makes listening to this exchange with Garcia pretty astounding. down date. Okay. The fact that they haven't found her, it motivates us to try to do something to find her because we know that if that miracle happens, I will be clear. My DNA is not anywhere

near where she's at. If she's found alive, she will tell you that I never had sex with her. Are you saying that Christy Wilson may still be alive? Do we know if she's dead alive, she will tell you that I never had sex with her. Are you saying that Christy Wilson may still be alive? Do we know if she's dead? She hasn't had any contact with anyone, she's not made any kind of financial transactions. I don't have explanations for that. If people disappear from the grid, people have disappeared from the grid and appear again a couple of years later. We also know that besides killing Christy Wilson, Garcia had a history of hurting other women. Although, as you will hear, he didn't quite see it that way. Years before Christy disappeared, Garcia pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon

after a girlfriend by the name of Wendy Ward tried to break up with him. She says he held her at gunpoint. He says it was just a disagreement between lovers. Are you saying that what happened to Wendy Ward was just a fight? She made allegations that were not true. You pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. There was a gun involved then. You told me. I had no choice at that time. I was 28, 27 years of age. I was going to San Jose State University. I was trying to support myself. I was trying to get my education. I have limited income and money. In order to have fought that case, I needed $50,000 at that time. And I did not have $50,000. So the best thing that I could do was to accept the deal that they offered me.

And that was, plead guilty, it will be a misdemeanor, and you can move on, and she can move on. And that was what we did. There was a gun involved, wasn't there? There was no gun involved. You pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon, and there was no gun involved? You just offered to plead guilty? I possessed guns, but there was no... We had a stormy relationship.

It was wrong for me to have lived and be part of that relationship. When you say stormy relationship, did you hit her? No, I did not. You never hit Wendy Ward? I did not. But Garcia may have hit another girlfriend, Lynette Smith. He apologized to her in a letter.

Did you hit Lynette Smith? No, I did not. You wrote in a letter. I saw the letter. You wrote her saying that you had hit her in the past. It was not that I hit her. No. Mario, you put it in a letter. You wrote a letter to her saying that you had hit her in the past. Are you saying you never hit her? That's not the content of when I said I hurt her it was not that I hit her. We, I had a stormy relationship with Lynette and with Wendy Ward. That's, that's, that's what I can tell you. I did not hit women and that's not my practice. I have been

happily married for 22 years. My wife knows and can tell you we have never had a domestic disturbance. Police have never been to my house. My own kids can tell you that we have never had a fight to the proportions that these allegations are making with these other women. I have not had that kind of relationship with my wife. So if I was abusing women in the past, wouldn't it be common sense that I would be doing it also in this marriage? Did you hit your first wife? No.

She went to a battered woman's shelter. Why else did she go to a battered woman's shelter Why else did she go to a battered woman's shelter? I did not She went because she wanted to go back to her home And she did not have no place to go Help me out Mario There are all of these accusations against you You're saying none of them are accurate

You're saying that every single one Your ex-wife, your first wife who says that you hit her, she's lying. You're saying that Wendy Ward is not telling the truth. You're saying you never hit Lynette Smith? No, I did not. Why would all these people make these accusations against you? We had a stormy relationship. We had a stormy relationship. In Lynette Smith's case, that stormy relationship ended with her death in a mysterious accident. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets,

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We had dinner. We had a couple of glasses of wine. Were you driving? No, I was not. A witness who saw the car said that the car was pulled over to the side. Why did you all pull over? side. Why did you all pull over? I don't remember that. That same witness says then the car just sped up and at a high rate of speed just drove into the water. Why would that happen? I don't have that information. Mario, you were in the car. As I said before, I was sleeping. I was... You were sleeping? I mean, you had just left a restaurant. In San Francisco, and the accident happened in Alameda. That's at least 45 minutes later.

So you don't remember any of it? While Garcia claims he was not driving and was sleeping at the time the car went into the water, he was able to escape. Lynette Smith and her mother, trapped inside the car, both drowned. You were the only one who managed to get out alive. How did you manage to get out alive? And no one else did. It was an automobile accident. We were underwater, I don't know how many feet.

You could not see the car. It was totally submerged. We could not open the doors of the car once it got submerged. How did you get out? I struggled. I struggled to take my seatbelt. I panicked. And eventually I took my seatbelt and I opened one of the windows. And as I opened one of the windows, all this rush of water came into the car. I got out, and everybody else, I presume, got out. And that's all I remember. And I tried to look for Lynn, for her mother,

and hypothermia started setting in. I was in the water for five, ten minutes. Did you find Lynette? And I tried to find her, and I could not find her. I swam all the way to the shore, and I was disoriented. I don't remember everything that was happening. They said that ambulances came. I don't remember the ambulances.

You say you didn't find Lynette. You told her brother that you did and that she was struggling and that you had her and then you had to let go. We were not struggling. We were not struggling in the water. You told her brother that she was struggling too much, you couldn't save her, that you had her. I could not reach her. You told her brother you did?

I could not reach her. This happened 27 years ago. I don't have recollection of all the details. A crash analysis of this accident indicated that the person who was driving, well an analysis of this accident was that the person who got out was most likely the driver. You were the one who got out alive. Were you driving that car? I was not driving that car. Didn't you after that accident right afterwards

hire a criminal attorney and not talk to police yes why if it was just a simple accident would you not talk to the police would you hire a criminal lawyer is this the thing to do, just like I did in this one incident. I had to hire an attorney. I tried to cooperate, but, you know, and give a statement. Police said you wouldn't talk, that you went and hired an attorney and you wouldn't talk with him. I hired an attorney, and his advice was not to talk. I followed my attorney's advice.

Why would you do that if it was just an accident? It's the legal right of every citizen of the United States. And my attorney advised me not to talk to them. Those legal rights protected Mario Garcia for years. He not only hurt Christy Wilson and his former girlfriends, he caused great pain to their families. He managed to keep his dark side well hidden and might have hurt more women if Christy Wilson had not fought hard for her life and left clear evidence on Garcia's face. Garcia was a good liar, but not good enough to fool 12 jurors at his trial. Mario Garcia will never hurt

anyone again, because on December 24th, 2020, he died in prison. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and this is my life of crime. This podcast series is developed by 48 Hours in partnership with CBS News Radio. Judy Tigard is 48 Hours executive producer. Jonathan Clark is CBS News Radio executive producer. Production and editing for this season of My Life of Crime by Alan Pang. of my life of crime by Alan Pang. This episode was also produced by Paula Rosa of 48 Hours. Craig Swagler is vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio. And finally, a thank you to all of you, our listeners.

We owe it all to you, the millions of 48 Hours fans. Don't forget to join me online. I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter and we're at 48 Hours on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. See you soon. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

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